The Rev. William E. Hull was provost of Samford University from 1987-96. (Photo courtesy of Samford University)

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama - The Rev. William E. Hull was an unlikely lightning rod. A calm, gentlemanly scholar, he was considered a brilliant New Testament theologian and seminary administrator, one of the most respected in the Southern Baptist Convention.

Born in Birmingham, Hull enrolled at the University of Alabama in 1948 as a pre-med student. Feeling called to the ministry, he transferred to Samford University as a junior and got a religion degree in 1951. He earned a master of divinity degree and a Ph.D. at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., and began teaching there in 1958.

He was dean of theology in 1970 when he preached a sermon at Crescent Hill Baptist Church in Louisville, Ky., where his friend the late John Claypool (later a priest at St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Birmingham) was then pastor. The sermon titled "Shall We Call the Bible infallible?" was reprinted in The Baptist Program, a Southern Baptist magazine.

"His answer was no," said Baptist historian Bill Leonard. "He challenged the idea of biblical inerrancy. It was a sermon that disagreed with and laid out an argument against biblical inerrancy. He said that even if we did have a perfect translation of a perfect text, it would still have to be interpreted by fallible interpreters. Therefore we should not call the Bible infallible."

Earlier that summer, the Southern Baptist Convention met in Denver and a debate broke out about the theological leanings of the Broadman Bible Commentary. One volume was withdrawn. Hull was one of the authors. There were rumblings among Southern Baptists that their six seminaries were getting too liberal. The Broadman Commentary and the sermon on infallibility made Hull a target.

"He never expected it to be controversial," Leonard said. "Because he was such a well-known figure, dean of the school of theology, it became fodder for the early efforts to say this is what's wrong with the seminaries."

Conservatives began an organized takeover of seminary trustee boards in 1979.

Hull left Southern Seminary to become pastor of the First Baptist Church of Shreveport from 1975-87. He guided the church toward a racially inclusive membership and took part in the first ordination of a woman by a Southern Baptist church in Louisiana - his daughter, Susan Hull Walker. Samford University President Tom Corts hired Hull as provost of Samford University, a post he held until 1996 before going back to teaching as a professor at Samford.

Hull wanted to protect Samford from a theologically motivated takeover like those at the Southern Baptist seminaries, so he and Corts led a move to change the charter and make the Samford board of trustees self-perpetuating, not subject to political maneuvering at the annual state Baptist conventions.

"Part of what Hull and Corts did in making that change was keep Samford on traditional conservative trajectory, but not the hard right," Leonard said. "It wasn't a way of making Samford liberal, it was a way of holding back a type of conservatism that was taking over at some of the SOuthern Baptist seminaries."

"He really was this intellectual, administrator, theologian, preacher and writer," Leonard said. "His academic prowess was mythic. He was known as one of the most demanding professors and Ph.D. supervisors."

Hull wrote more than 20 books, including two recently finished manuscripts awaiting publication. One of those, "The Quest for a Good Death," deals with his struggle with ALS.

"Until his last minutes on earth, Dr. Hull was a teacher," said Samford University President Andrew Westmoreland. "To generations of students throughout the United States and the world, he taught a model of thoughtful scholarship. To church members here and elsewhere, he taught the importance of personal faith, informed by theology. To all of us, as he wrote the final chapter of his own life, he taught us how to live and how to die."

Hull for 22 years was theologian-in-residence at Mountain Brook Baptist Church, where he taught Wednesday night Bible studies and preached monthly.

"He was a man of deep faith, he had a brilliant mind; he was an extremely hard worker, extremely disciplined," said his son, the Rev. David Hull, pastor of First Baptist Church of Huntsville. "That was the key to his success. His primary theological theme was that of reconciliation, bridging between two groups that may have grown apart."

Two such groups were the church and higher education. "He moved back and forth between them," Hull said. "He moved back and forth between the

sacred and secular. He was presidenet of the Birmingham Rotary Club, a civic group, because he thought it was important to be part of that, not just sequestered in the church."

For years, Hull also tried to bridge differences between conservatives and moderates in the Southern Baptist Convention.

"He was one of the most consequential Baptist leaders of the last 100 years," said Beeson Divinity School Dean Timothy George. "He was filled with hope. It was a hope grounded in God's loving purpose for all creation."

Hull served on the Baptist Peace Committee, but ultimately the conservative takeover continued and moderates drifted away to form the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. One of his last books, "A Seminary in Crisis," looked back at the takeover of Southern Seminary. He also recently rote books on the Apostles' Creed and the Lord's Prayer. "As long as he could hold a pen, he kept writing," David Hull said.

"In his lifestyle he was very conservative," Hull said. "He wasn't a liberal. But he was a very thoughtful, intellectual, thinking person. That can be threatening to people, if you ask questons. Some never got beyond the sermon title, 'Shall We Call the Bible Infallible?' He said we need to affirm about the Bible what the Bible says about itself. That's conservative, because it's conserving what the Bible says about itself. He was a very gifted teacher, and administrator, and preacher. Not many pull off all three of those."

The Rev. William Hull and his wife, Wylodine, with their granddaughter, the Rev. Emily Hull McGee, a minister on staff at Highland Baptist Church in Louisville, Ky. (File/The Birmingham News)